Friday, May 07, 2010

What it Says and What it Means

I find food labeling lacking in truth. They craft words and phrases that sound much better than what is really going on. Let me take on the egg industry. I have a small contingent of egg customers who can’t believe the quality of my hens’ eggs over any store bought egg.

At the supermarket you will see enticing words like “grain fed” which means their chickens are fed corn and soy. “Cage Free” sounds good, but this usually means chickens get to roam freely in a giant barn, usually ankle deep in manure. They never get to go outside. Sadly “Free Range” often means the same thing and it often even means a cage that is large enough for a chicken to actually walk around in.

My favorite is “Vegetarian Diet.” It makes one think that the chickens are living on a meat free commune in the foot hills. Chickens are not vegetarians and should not be subjected to this foolishness. Chickens eat bugs and grubs. Chickens will eat one another if the opportunity arises.

Since “Free Range” can have so many hidden meanings, folk that have real free range hens now use the term “Pasture Ranged.” This means our chickens actually do go outdoors and scratch around in the grass and eat seeds and bugs and dirt and all kinds of stuff. These things are where they get their natural proteins that makes their eggs healthier and more nutritious.

If you open an egg and the yolk isn’t the color of a pale pumpkin, you just an egg from an undernourished hen. Notice the difference in the color of the egg on the left in the photo above compared to the two on the right. Also see the comparison below. There is a difference.